Nate Silver says there’s a gap between the promise and the reality of “big data,” and on Thursday the uber statistician-slash-journalist offered some suggestions for how people can get smarter about using data to make better business decisions.

Silver, known for his on-the-spot predictions for the last two presidential elections via his FiveThirtyEight blog, spent the last three years at the New York Times, where he honed both his blog and his personal brand before ESPN hired him last month “to extend ESPN’s leadership in using data and analytics in its cross-platform storytelling.”